How to Keep Your Hearing Aids Working Their Best

Hearing aids are wonderful pieces of technology. New discoveries about pitch perception, speech, and sound location means the latest technology is super refined. All of this advanced technology means that hearing aids are a big and worthwhile investment, so in order to keep your hearing aid investment working at its best, you might want to follow these few simple guidelines.

Replace Hearing Aid Domes Regularly

Hearing aid domes are to be replaced every two to four weeks. Make sure to check with your audiologist on how often you need to replace domes. Here are a few things to keep track of that can lower the volume and can be a sign that hearing aid domes or tubes are clogged.

Sound quality is reduced.

Unusual whistling sound.

It's difficult to insert the hearing aid

The hearing aid causes pain

If after replacing the domes or tubes the above problems persist, it's time to seek help from your audiologist. Remember that that's why they are there! In most cases, you paid for this service when you purchased your hearing aid.

Protect Your Hearing Aids from Heat

When you take your hearing aids off make sure that you don't leave them by any damaging heat source. Heat can damage the delicate parts of your hearing aids. This also applies to sunlight. Many people are unaware that exposing their hearing aids to direct sunlight can be bad for them. So make sure to put a protective cover on your aids when you wear them and don't place them anywhere where there is direct sunlight when you take them off.

Take Out the Battery at Night

Drying your hearing aids overnight is a great idea, but some people wonder if they should leave the batteries in or take them out. You should always ask your audiologist, but anecdotal evidence from the HearingAidForums suggest that taking the batteries out at night increases battery life. If in doubt, you could always try it yourself. Take your batteries out for three weeks while drying them overnight and see how long they last. Then leave them in while drying and see if it helps them to last longer. According to the people on the forum, their battery life after taking them out before drying, went from five days to seven days.

Clean Your Hands before Touching Your Hearing Aid

You might think your hands feel and look clean, but your fingers contain many different types of oil that can be damaging to hearing aids. A good rule to follow is to wash your hands or use a small hand cleaning wipe before you handle your hearing aid. An Antimicrobial products can also be applied to the hearing aids every few days helps kill off infection causing microbes.

Use a Moisture Protecting Cover

Sweat is salty water. Salt and water are bad for hearing aids. You make this corrosive hearing aid sweat without even trying. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are many different options for keeping your hearing aids dry. Below is a list of covers that our PHB community has found to work well for them. If you have any you'd like to add to the list, please include them in the comments!

Moisture is corrosive and quite harmful to hearing aids. Investing in a good dryer might seem like an unnecessary expense, but it can help keep your hearing aids functioning at their best. And if you get a dryer that also has a UVC function, you can also use this dryer to sanitize your hearing aid. Below are a few of the more highly rated dryers that we found on Amazon.

You should make sure to gently clean your hearing aids--including screens and tubes--every week and have them serviced and cleaned by a professional every six months. Both the weekly cleaning and six months is a guideline. Not everyone produces the same amount of earwax or lives the same kind of life. Some people are extremely active at home, work, and play and experience more debris and wax. So if you are one of those people, you might have to clean your aids nightly and have them serviced every three months. But it's not just your hearing aids you need to keep clean. It's also your ears.

In addition to keeping your hearing aids clean and having them serviced, you want to make sure to practice good ear hygiene. Hearing aid wearers have more issues with cerumen, because the wax may have a difficult time leaving the ear canal naturally. HERE are a few good tips for keeping your ears clean and sparkly!

Make Your Own Desiccant

If some of the above drying solutions seemed too pricey, here's a helpful tip on how to use desiccant found in many of the things we buy, use it to create your own drying station for your hearing aids. Below is a video that shows how you can do this. Desiccant does have a shelf life, but certain kinds can be heated in the microwave to reinvigorate their drying ability.

If you'd like to learn more, see your hearing health provider. If you need help finding a hearing health provider click HERE to be connected with the largest network of trusted hearing health professionals in the nation!